


More Than a Fixer Upper

by Hazel_Athena



Series: Handyman AU [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Constipation, Home Repair, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel_Athena/pseuds/Hazel_Athena
Summary: “There is nothing wrong with this house.” Faraday insists. “Why are you making that face?” He adds when Vasquez wrinkles his nose disconcertingly.“I’m waiting to see what’s going to happen now that you’ve tempted fate that way.” Vasquez tells him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the house will catch fire.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> For northisnotup who came up with the entire bowerbird idea and decoy-ocelot who champions this verse like a pro.

It starts the morning the back deck collapses. One minute they're lying in bed trading lazy kisses back and forth, secure in the knowledge that neither of them has anywhere to be today - no deadlines for Faraday or projects for Vasquez - when there's a horrific cracking noise, and they both freeze.

"Um." Faraday says after about a minute has passed with no further sounds of destruction ringing out. "You heard that too, right?"

"Si, guero." Vasquez makes a face and sighs. "We should probably go find out what that was." He adds, looking like he'd rather do anything but. 

Now it's Faraday's turn to frown. "But I'm comfy." He grumbles, shifting up against where Vasquez has him pressed into the mattress to emphasize his point. "Are you really gonna make me move?"

"Believe me, Joshua, it's not because I want to." Dipping his head down, Vasquez catches Faraday's mouth in yet another kiss, the touch as exciting as it now is familiar. Then he pulls back and gives Faraday a lopsided grin. "Come on. Let's go see what your terrible house has done this time."

"Why is always _my_ house when something breaks in it?" Faraday asks as he allows Vasquez to haul him carefully to his feet. "How come it's only your house when nothing's wrong?"

Vasquez snorts. "Guero, it will only ever be _your_ house. I would never lay claim to a disaster such as this."

Faraday feels a slight stab of hurt at this declaration, but does his best not to show it. Grabbing a sweater up off the floor  - it's still early enough in the spring season for there to be a chill in the air at this time of the morning - he tugs it on and moves towards the bedroom door. "Whatever. That sounded like it came from outside to me."

"I agree." Vasquez makes a humming noise and grabs a sweater of his own. "And around the back too."

They tromp down the stairs one after the other and then cross through the main level until they hit the kitchen and the set of double doors that lead out into the back yard, at which point the most recent bit of damage becomes obvious. The reason being, neither of them can go out past said doors because the deck they lead out to has been reduced to a cracked and sunken heap that probably wouldn't hold either of their weights even if they could scramble out onto it.

"Aw, man." Faraday groans when he sees what's happened. "It was just starting to get warm enough to work out there again too."

Beside him, Vasquez makes a noise that might be commiserating, but feels more like an 'I told you so'. He's been muttering darkly about the state of the deck and the poor condition of the wood ever since the last of the heavy winter snowfall had cleared away and left the structure looking a liitle worse for wear. The odds are good he's going to be smug about this for weeks.

"I don't suppose there's anything you can do to fix it?" Faraday asks, even though he doesn't need any skill in the construction field to know what the answer will be.

True to form, Vasquez gives him a flat stare. "It's in pieces." He says when Faraday holds his ground and refuses to speak first. "And not just any pieces, but pieces made up of wood that's probably rotted through. The whole thing is going to have to be replaced."

Faraday sighs. He's not surprised by the answer, but he is disappointed. The deck had been one of his favourite features of the house. He's gotten plenty of work done out there, not to mention taken many a nice nap to boot. Sighing again, he considers the mess. "Do you think you could build a new one that's exactly the same?"

Vasquez stutters a few times before replying. His eyes narrow briefly, though why Faraday doesn't have the slightest idea, and then his shoulders slump. Faraday doesn't understand that either.

"I can try." He says finally, his expression turning thoughtful as he focuses on the start of a project that only exists in his head. "It won't be one hundred percent the same and it will take me a while, but if that's what you want ..."

He trails off, and Faraday feels something pleasant stir in his gut at the thought that Vasquez would go out of his way to accommodate him like this. "I really like my deck. Or liked, I suppose." He corrects, eyeing the mess.

Vasquez huffs out a laugh. "Then your deck you shall have, guero. Just try and have some patience. That's a big project, and I have actual paying work to get to as well."

"Yeah, yeah, no problem." Faraday waves a hand to indicate how Vasquez can move at whatever pace he chooses. He knows full well the man will get to it as soon as he's able, and he's just pleased to know he'll get his deck back the way he likes it. "Take all the time you need."

*****

"Did you know the place three houses down is for sale?"

Faraday, who up until this point had been sitting with his feet propped up on the coffee table while he flipped back and forth between two different baseball games on tv, blinks when a set of classified ads appears unexpectedly in front of him. Confused, he cranes his neck around to get a better look at Vasquez, who's now looming over him, and then turns back to the paper resting on his lap.

"Where in hell's name did you get an honest to god newspaper?" He asks, more surprised by that than anything else. "You know that's a dying industry, right? Tell me you didn't pay actual money for it."

"Please." Vasquez snorts. "I've heard enough of your rants about the journalism community needing to 'change with the times' to ever dare do that and then let you find out about it. I stole it from Jack."

"Ah." Faraday's never managed to conclusively pin down the age of Vasquez's friend Jack - a bear of a man who runs a hardware supply shop on the outskirts of town and routinely, or so Faraday suspects, cuts Vasquez deals on his purchases - but he'd definitely peg him as being old enough to think that newspapers are still worth spending money on. Also, the man has a paranoia streak a mile wide and likely figures the Internet is out to get him. "Hopefully he won't miss it."

"I doubt he'll even notice it's gone, and you're missing the point. Look." Vasquez leans over and taps a section of the paper where, sure enough, an advertisement for one of the houses down the street can be seen listing the property for sale. 

"I see it." Faraday agrees. "I don’t know why I’m seeing it, but I’m seeing it. You worried about property values or something?"

"Or something." Vasquez mutters. He taps the paper again, more insistently this time. "It's nearby, meaning we wouldn't have to change neighborhoods, and it's got a deck just like the one you want and more bedrooms than we have here."

Faraday, who at this point has started casually paging through the newspaper just to see what's in it, crumples the whole mess without meaning to. "Wait, are you saying you want to _buy_ this place? Vas, what the fuck?"

Vasquez shakes his head insistently. "No, no. Not buy, not necessarily, but we could look at it, yes? What would it hurt?"

Faraday scowls up at him, and shoves the now slightly tattered paper into his chest. "That's a hell of a step to take to avoid fixing the deck, sweetheart. If you really don't want to do it, just say so. We can hire somebody for the job."

"Que? No!" Vasquez makes a noise like Faraday's mortally offended him. Grabbing the paper, he folds it up and stuffs it under one of his arms, glaring all the while. "I'm not inflicting this house on some innocent contractor who doesn't know what he or she is getting into. I just don't want to be inflicting it on me, either."

Now Faraday's just confused. "Are you saying you want to leave the deck like it is?"

This time the noise Vasquez lets out is less mortally offended and more mortally wounded. He briefly throws his hands in the air, stopping only when the motion threatens to send the paper flying, and stalks out of the room, grumbling to himself in rapid fire Spanish.

"That doesn't answer my question!" Faraday shouts after him.

*****

"There's a piece of siding peeling off the house." Vasquez drops this news with all the gravity of someone announcing a loved one has just died, and seems unimpressed when Faraday's sole response is a shrug.

"Okay?" Faraday says when Vasquez keeps staring at him like a more pointed response is needed. "Where?"

"On the side that faces the Cullen's property." Vasquez tells him. "Up high, near the roof."

"Okay." Faraday repeats. That doesn't sound too bad, so long as Vasquez is careful not to fall when he gets up on the ladder to fix it. And also ... "Wear a shirt when you deal with it and a baggier pair of jeans. Otherwise Emma's gonna be out there with a pair of binoculars or something."

"I wouldn't have to fix it if we lived in a house that wasn't constructed out of the shoddiest building materials known to man." Vasquez points out. 

"This again?" Faraday groans. Ever since the night with the classified ad, Vasquez has been periodically making cracks about moving, and it’s starting to get old. "Vas, the house is fine. Yeah, it's a bit of a fixer upper, but who cares? We don't need anything more."

"Says the one who is not doing any of the fixing." Vasquez growls.

"Oh." Faraday says. He flinches as a hot spike of shame licks its way up between his shoulder blades. It's never occurred to him that Vasquez might not want to be putting all this work into the house on his own. "Yeah, that's fair. I didn't mean to sound like I was taking you for granted, darlin'. Just tell me how I can help, and I'll do it."

Vasquez makes a face that Faraday couldn't describe if he tried. "Madre de dios, _no_. Guero, that is the last thing in the world I want. In this or any other world. You are to home care what Nero was to Rome."

There's a short pause where they both simply stare at each other. 

"Well." Faraday says, cracking first. "I don't know if I'm insulted or just plain confused, but okay, you do what you want." 

“I would, but you tell me no every time I suggest we move.” The words come out in a low grumble, but Faraday catches them sure enough.

“There is nothing wrong with this house.” Faraday insists. “Why are you making that face?” He adds when Vasquez wrinkles his nose disconcertingly.

“I’m waiting to see what’s going to happen now that you’ve tempted fate that way.” Vasquez tells him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the house will catch fire.”

“How the hell would that be lucky?” Faraday demands.

Vasquez shrugs. “Easy. If the house burns down, we can’t live here anymore.”

Faraday takes a deep breath and thinks very hard about maintaining his blood pressure to the best of his capabilities. He has enough trouble in his life already thanks to his bad leg, he doesn’t need to be adding any more health concerns into the mix. “For the last time, we are not moving. We have no need to move and therefor no reason to do so.”

“Ugh.” Vasquez says tiredly. “This discussion is not over. However, in the meantime, I’m going to go reattach that piece of siding before we wind up with a leak or worse.”

“Remember what I said about dressing appropriately.” Faraday calls after him. “We both know Emma forgets she’s married whenever she sees you half naked.”

Vasquez’s single finger response is, if not fit for polite company, at least succinct.

*****

Vasquez doesn’t bring up the idea of finding a new place again for another couple of weeks, so Faraday puts it out of his mind and then eventually forgets about it. The house is on its best behaviour, giving Vasquez nothing to mutter ominously about, and they carry on without incident. The new deck goes up faster than even Faraday had been expecting, the siding gets put back up to snuff, and all is right in the world.

That is, all is right in the world until Faraday plugs his laptop into an outlet in the living room one evening and the whole place descends into darkness.

“Huh.” He says after waiting a few seconds to see if the power might magically come back on again, blinking rapidly as his eyes get used to the lack of lighting. “Vas! Have you got any idea what just happened?”

There’s a muted thump from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen, a sound not unlike that of a body impacting with a barrier of some kind, and he hears Vasquez swear. “You alright, sweetheart?”

“Only if you define alright as by my having found the basement door with my face.” Vasquez says in the distance, though his voice is getting closer, indicating he’s abandoned the basement in order to come find Faraday instead. “What did you do?”

“Who says I did anything?” Faraday demands, offended. “All I’ve been doing for the last hour is working out here in the living room. The only time I moved was when I got up to plug the laptop in because the battery was dying.”

“That explains it.” Vasquez says. Faraday can hear it as he slowly makes his way down the hallway and into the living room, no doubt carefully navigating the pitch black house. “We’ve obviously blown a fuse, probably there were too many things running at once and you plugging the computer in was the last straw. I told you the fuse box wasn’t strong enough handle the both of us living here.”

Faraday sniffs. “Well unless you’d rather live somewhere else, I suggest you get over yourself.”

“Si sólo pudiera.” Vasquez replies, and because Faraday has no idea what that means, he chooses to take it as an agreement.

“Exactly. Now, what’re you doing in here if the problem’s with the fuse box? Last time I checked that was downstairs.” Which was true, Vasquez has pointed it out to him on more than one occasion and everything. Faraday has no idea why.

“I need your phone.” Vasquez replies, and Faraday can honestly say he wasn’t expecting that. He’s going to ask why, but the next words out of Vasquez’s mouth clear things up nicely. “I can’t see to get down the stairs, and mine is up in the bedroom. Hand it over.”

Faraday starts digging around in his pocket as requested. “How’re you going to fix the fuse issue when you have to use one hand to hold the phone?”

Vasquez is silent for a moment and then huffs out an annoyed breath. “You’d better come too.”

Feeling smug because he’s for once come out on top in a discussion about home maintenance, no matter how small, Faraday pulls his phone out with a triumphant flourish and thumbs it on to bring up his flashlight app. “What would we do without the wonders of smartphones?” He asks as the light shines out to illuminate the room.

“We’d use a real flashlight like our father’s before us.” Vasquez deadpans. “Or maybe a candle. Come on.”

“Like you’d ever let me wander around unsupervised with a lit candle.” Faraday grumbles good naturedly as he obediently heads where Vasquez tells him to.

“I would not have to worry if you weren’t so accident prone.” Vasquez singsongs. “Speaking of – watch yourself on the steps.”

“Why?” Faraday asks. “You’ve reinforced every damn stair in this house, plus every handrail. I don’t think I could fall down them if I tried.”

“I have great faith in the ability of both you and that leg of yours to manage it. Be careful.”

Grumbling under his breath, Faraday adjusts his grip on the phone, holding it up higher to better light up the stairwell. “How’s that?”

“Fine for now, but we’ll see once we get to the fuse box.”

Finding the fuse box goes easily enough, and all Faraday has to do is stand there with his phone held up at the angle Vasquez tells him to. It’s boring work, not the kind Faraday’s ever been interested in, but it’s not like they can get away with leaving things as they are. Faraday had wanted to get a head start on one of the latest manuscripts Sam had sent him, and he’s not going to be able to do that if he can’t see anything.

“You having any luck there?” He asks after an untold number of minutes have passed. He’s been standing in one place long enough that his bad leg is starting to ache, and he shifts it around a little in the hope of preventing it from stiffening up entirely. “You’ve been at this for hours.”

Vasquez snorts. “Not even close, guero. You’re sense of time is abysmal.”

“Now that’s just rude,” Faraday grumbles. “I’m bored and achy, and now you’re being nasty to me. The least you could do is talk to me while we’re stuck here.”

“Hmm.” Vasquez says. He does something with a bunch of wires that Faraday won’t even pretend to understand the purpose of, clicking his tongue when one of them moves somewhere he doesn’t want it to. “Did I tell you about the woman Jack introduced me to the last time I was out at the store?”

“Woman, what woman?” Faraday asks. He narrows his eyes even though his position behind Vasquez makes it impossible for the man to see him. “You better not be planning to cheat on me with someone Jack found for you. Chances are good she eats meat raw and with no utensils if she’s a friend of his.”

There’s a long pause and Vasquez turns around slowly to stare at him incredulously. The poor lighting throws a series of bizarre shadows over his face, all of which do nothing to hide the way his eyebrows have shot towards his hairline.

“What?” Faraday asks defensively. “You know I’m right.”

“Miriam is a perfectly nice woman,” Vasquez says primly. “She’s also happily married with three children and old enough to be my mother. Even if I wanted to leave you for her, she’d never let me get away with it.”

“Clearly she’s never seen you without a shirt on.” Faraday deadpans, snickering when Vasquez turns back around with a snort. “That’d turn any married woman’s head. Just ask Emma.”

“You are a bad man, Joshua Faraday.” Vasquez mutters, his shoulders hunching in a way Faraday knows means he’s embarrassed.

“And don’t you forget it.” Faraday says. “So, what was so special about this Miriam woman if you’re not throwing me over for her?”

“She’s a realtor.” Vasquez says, half his attention back on where he’s messing with the fuse box. “Jack thought I might like to meet her in the event that we ever decide to get rid of this place and move into something not guaranteed to one day fall down around us.”

“Hah!” Faraday barks. “So it’s not me you’re cheating on, it’s our home. That is a dick move, Senor Vasquez, and I do not appreciate it.”

“I am not cheating on anything,” Vasquez insists. “What I’m doing is making reasonable inquiries about the local real estate market on the off chance that you will one day see fit to free me from this dilapidated prison you call a house.”

“It’s not happening,” Faraday says. “We have no need to move, and we probably couldn’t afford it anyway. That shit takes serious cash.”

“Hence why we should talk to the realtor and find out what’s out there in our price range.” Vasquez tells him. He sounds like he thinks he’s being reasonable, but Faraday just rolls his eyes.

“This house is fine. It has everything we need, and even though it’s got a few quirks ...” Whatever Vasquez has been doing to the fuse box chooses this moment to kick in, and the lights come up around them, “… there’s nothing bad enough that it can’t be dealt with. See what I mean?”

He shoots Vasquez a smug grin and gets a frosty glare in response. “Esta estúpida casa me odia tanto como lo odio.”

“You just called my house stupid again, didn’t you?” Faraday asks.

“Be grateful I wasn’t talking about you.” Vasquez replies.

Unconcerned, Faraday tucks his phone into the pocket of his jeans and makes to head for the stairs. “And on that note, I have work to be getting back to. Please don’t get into a fight with the fuse box now that you’ve got it up and running again.”

“If I had anything on hand I would be throwing it at you now. Know this.”

Faraday’s only response is a lazy wave of his hand as he starts climbing up the basement steps.

*****

“I think we got some of your mail again.”

Faraday looks up from where he’s in the process of digging said mail out of the box, and finds Emma Cullen striding towards him like a woman on a mission. Her hand is outstretched, holding a sealed envelope that she brandishes in his direction as if it's some kind of weapon. He raises his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

Emma snorts. “Mainly the fact that neither my name nor my husband’s is Alejandro Vasquez. Why’s he getting mail from mortgage brokers? You two aren’t thinking of moving without telling me, are you?”

“What?” Faraday blinks at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Emma’s expression shutters slightly, and her pace slows considerably as she approaches the steps. “Nothing,” she says quickly. “I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll just give this right to Vasquez.”

“Nothing my ass,” Faraday snaps. “Give me that.” His grab for the letter in her hand is maybe more rude than it has a right to be, but he does not at all like the sound of the term ‘mortgage broker’.

Emma relinquishes her grip on the letter when he snatches at it, stepping back with her hands raised defensively after Faraday has it in his grasp. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay? All I did was ask a simple question. I didn’t know it was something of an issue between the two of you. Forget I said anything.”

“Not fucking likely.” Faraday growls. He looks as the return address stamped on the corner of the paper, noting how, like Emma has indicated, it belongs to one of the local mortgage brokerages. Ignoring Emma’s pointed comments about opening other people’s mail being a crime; he tears into the envelope and pulls out the contents.

“Oh that bastard,” he snarls when he sees what’s inside. “I’m gonna throttle him.”

“I fully believe he could take you in a fight,” Emma says unhelpfully.

“Well, you might be about to find out for sure,” Faraday tells her. He gives her a curt wave. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go give my jackass boyfriend a piece of my mind.”

Emma mutters something he doesn’t manage to catch because he’s too busy stomping inside the house and slamming the door shut behind him. “Vasquez!” He shouts. “Where the hell are you?”

“Up here,” comes the reply, and Vasquez appears suddenly at the top of the stairs. “Why are you shouting?”

Faraday holds the paperwork up so he can see it. “Take a fucking guess!”

Vasquez peers down at the mess Faraday’s holding and winces when figures out what it is. “Maldita. Guero, I can explain.” His hands come up in a placating gesture as he makes his way down the stairs. “I promise I have not gone out and put an offer in on a new place.”

Faraday angrily waves the mess in his hands at him. “You better hope you haven’t! Otherwise I’m going to string you from the damn roof rafters.”

“Ugh, I knew you were going to react like this.” Vasquez groans.

“And yet you went ahead and did it.” Brandishing the papers in front of him, Faraday lets out a growl and stalks towards the living room, figuring he might want to sit down and have a closer look at them.

Distantly he hears the telltale sound of Vasquez coming down the stairs after him, but he’s too caught up in paging through the stuff in his hands to pay much attention. It’s only when he feels the touch of a hand on his elbow that he whirls around and shakes the papers in Vasquez’s face. “This is prequalification shit for a mortgage! What the hell are you doing with it?”

“Trying to figure you what we might qualify for, obviously.” Vasquez grits out. He pulls his hand away when Faraday glares at him, but otherwise doesn’t go far. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Not that big a deal?” Faraday echoes, unable to believe what he’s hearing. “You’re talking about up and moving without saying a word to me, and you think that’s not worth mentioning?”

Clearly starting to get annoyed, Vasquez rolls his eyes and bats the papers away from his face. “Alright, guero, one) I have no intention of going anywhere without you, what the fuck, and two) of course I was going to mention it! I was just waiting for the paperwork to come in so I’d have evidence to back myself up with when I suggested it. I didn’t know you were going to intercept it at the door.”

“Blame Emma.” Faraday says snidely. “It wound up at her place by mistake and she thought she’d be nice and give it to me. Imagine my surprise when she told me she hoped we weren’t moving without telling her! Hell, imagine my surprise when I found out we might be moving without anyone telling me!”

“For the last time, neither of us is going anywhere! I was only trying to get some information.” Vasquez trails off into a number of curses in his native tongue, glaring like he’s the one who’s somehow been wronged here.

Entirely fed up, Faraday throws his hands in the air and shouts, “Well then why the fuck didn’t you just tell me instead of sneaking around behind my back?”

“Because you never listen to me when I talk about these things!” Vasquez hisses his hackles going up something fierce. It seems Faraday’s officially pushed him into anger as well. “Always! Every time when I bring it up you laugh it off and say living in this monstrosity it fine.”

“But again, I reiterate,” Faraday snaps, “you just went ahead with this without saying a word. What the hell, Vas?”

“I didn’t go ahead with anything! All I did was talk to a broker so see what kind of financing we could get approved for. That is it! Nothing more, nada!” Vasquez makes a swift cutting motion with his hand, as if he’s slicing through all the arguments Faraday can come up with. “I had no intention of going anywhere without you. I only wanted to see what our options might be!”

“Well that sure as shit sounds like you moving on without me from where I’m standing!” Faraday informs him.

Vasquez makes a noise that’s all anger and no words and fists his hands in his hair, his clenched fingers making the dark curls stand up on end as they go. “Joshua, you are not listening to me. You _never_ listen to me when I try to talk to you about this!”

Faraday pulls himself up to his full height and flings the papers he’s still holding onto the coffee table where they scatter across it like so many pieces of detritus. “If I’m not listening to you, it’s only because you’re not making any fucking sense! Stop dancing around the issue and tell me what your problem is!”

“I don’t want to grow old in this house!” Vasquez roars. Faraday rears back, and the two of them are left staring at each other, both panting raggedly thanks to how worked up they’ve gotten.

“Vas,” he says finally, but it’s no use. Vasquez gives a vicious shake of his head and then whirls around on one foot, stomping out of the room even after Faraday tries to call him back. His footsteps echo throughout the house, indicating as he makes his way down the hall and then up the stairs. Faraday holds his breath for a few tense moments, wincing when he hears the expected sound of their bedroom door slamming.

“Shit.” He mutters. The silence settles around him, and Faraday’s left standing in the middle of the living room like an idiot. He glances over at the coffee table, spotting the papers that started this mess. “Shit,” he breathes again. “Way to go, Joshua. You’ve really put your foot in it this time.”

He considers going after Vasquez and discards the idea almost as quickly. The man clearly wants space for now, and the least Faraday can do is give it to him. The best move for him at the moment is to leave Vasquez to stew until he’s ready to come down. He just hopes that won’t take too long.

*****

Apparently it _is_ going to take long because the day has shifted over into evening and Vasquez has yet to emerge from where he’s barricaded himself away in their room.

Faraday's the first to admit he's never been particularly good at apologies. Unfortunately for him, he's pretty sure he's going to have to come up with one now, and since it's Vasquez he's talking about, it's got to be a decent one. The question thus becomes how to best approach the matter.

There's a common misbelief that journalists, or former journalists as the case may be, are naturally good with words. In his own case, Faraday considers that to be an utter load of bullshit. Sure, he'll do just fine if he's allowed to write his words down beforehand, but somehow he doesn't think Vasquez would appreciate him slipping a note under the door to try and appease him. 

With that in mind, he heads for the kitchen and the one sure fire thing that never fails to get Vasquez's attention. He knows not everyone subscribes to the old adage that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but as far as he's concerned that's just because not everyone has met Alejandro Vasquez and his voracious appetite. The man will eat anything, and for all Faraday knows probably has.

As it happens, Faraday's not a terribly good cook. Oh, he's passable all right, but he's certainly not about to be dishing up a five course meal anytime in the near future. Lucky for him, Vasquez isn't constrained by a refined palate and will gleefully eat whatever's put in front of him. Therefore, cooking to the best of his ability has become Faraday's go to apology mechanism.

On the other hand, proper grovelling means he should make an effort and go with one of his better dishes. That's why he has one of his best pasta recipes sizzling in a pot on the stove when he goes rooting through the kitchen drawers to find his favourite stirring spoon. It's not where it's supposed to be, and that sends him on a hunt throughout the rest of the drawers to try and find where the hell it's wound up.

He's resorted to rifling through some of their rarely used spots when he finds the notebook. No real effort has been made to hide it, minus the fact that it's sitting in a drawer Faraday's reasonably certain he's never opened before tonight, but there's a nagging sense in the back of his mind that this isn't something he's supposed to touch.

Which is why he waits for maybe the better part of a minute instead of grabbing it right away like he really wants.

The book is well used to say the least. There are pages and pages covered in what Faraday instantly recognizes as Vasquez’s scratchy handwriting, and that’s only the beginning. Stuffed in between many of these are what appear to be clippings from magazines, bits of classified ads, and lord knows what else. Some entries are well organized, containing detailed lists that clearly a lot of time and energy were put into creating, while others are just uneven sentences taking up a single sheet, as if Vasquez had thought of them unexpectedly and then rushed to scrawl them down lest he forget whatever the idea was.

It’s what the entries are, however, that grabs Faraday’s attention the most. All of them, every single one, has to do with some feature of a house and how it needs to be set up to best suit his and Vasquez’s needs. There are multiple entries alone devoted to the issue of the deck and what the preferred designs would be. The fuse box plays a starring role in its apparent need to support the electric presence of half a dozen human beings at any one time. An untold number of pages eek out the best setup for stairways and appropriately reinforced handrails.

The kicker, though, is how the entries progress over time. In the beginning is where he finds the newspaper advertisements and folded realtor printouts, ones full of houses similar to where they live now, but with obvious differences in how they tend to be at least a decade newer than their place. Most of these have certain features ticked off on them – such as the style of deck Faraday prefers and the extra bedrooms Vasquez seems obsessed with.

And that’s just the start. Eventually the examples of houses on the market disappear and are replaced with entries detailing anything and everything that Vasquez wants to fix or change about the current house. His personal notes get more pointed, shifting back and forth between languages, almost as if he’s switched from an intention of finding a new place to a plan of attack where he beats this house into submission and finally deems it to be livable.

Faraday thinks back to what Vasquez has said earlier – or shouted rather – about not wanting to grow old in this house, and it occurs to him that not _wanting_ to do something is very different from flat out _refusing_ to do it.

“Jesus Christ.” He breathes. Closing the book with a snap, he whirls around, already opening his mouth to yell, “Vas! Vas, darlin’, I need you to get the fuck down here! I – _fucking son of a bitch, ow_!”

Dropping the book to the floor, Faraday clamps his left hand over the part of his right arm that’s just brushed up against the heated pot on the stove. Not having been paying attention to what he was doing, he’d flailed a little too far and brushed up against it in his rush to get Vasquez’s attention.

“Damn, that stings,” he hisses through clenched teeth. Greatly daring, he lifts his hand up to get a decent look and immediately regrets it when the sight of the burnt skin somehow makes the pain level ratchet up by about a million. “ _Fuck_.”

“Guero?” And isn’t that wonderful? It seems Vasquez has chosen now to reappear. Couldn’t he have done that _before_ Faraday had managed to charbroil himself? “What’s wrong?”

If Faraday were Vasquez he’d no doubt deny that anything was wrong and pretend that everything is hunky-dory. However, Faraday is decidedly not Vasquez and therefore raises his arm up higher so that the other man can get a good look at it. “It’s possible I had a slight accident.”

Vasquez makes an alarmed noise and darts around the kitchen island like he’s the one who’s been burned. “What did you do?” He demands, eyeing the injury worriedly. “How did you manage this?”

“Wasn’t hard.” Faraday grunts. “I got a little over-excited trying to get your attention and wasn’t watching what I was doing.”

“What did you need my – no, never mind. Let’s get this taken care of first, and then you can explain what else you were up to. Here, you need to soak it.” Gripping Faraday by his uninjured arm, Vasquez steers him over towards the sink and cranks both the taps, testing the water on his own skin until it’s reached a temperature he deems appropriate. “Cool water is best. Too cold and you can wind up with other problems.”

“I knew that, thanks,” Faraday grits out. He jerks his head in the direction of stove, indicating where the pasta pot is still simmering away. “Do me a favor and turn that off, would you? I don’t want to accidentally burn the whole place down because I forgot about it.”

For once Vasquez doesn’t make a peep about how nice it’d be to see the house go up in flames. He simply nods and does as Faraday’s asked.

“Thanks.” Faraday says, and sighs as the lukewarm water starts to do away with some of the pain lancing along his forearm. “Damn, this was not how I thought this night would go.”

“Agreed.” Vasquez replies. “You stay here and keep soaking that. I’ll see if we have any cream to put it on so it won’t get infected. You don’t want to go to the hospital, do you?”

Faraday scoffs at the suggestion. “What, for this? No, thank you. It may hurt like a motherfucker, but all going to the hospital will do is see me sit there for god knows how long only for whatever doctor who treats me to do exactly what you’re already planning. I’d rather stay here.”

“Alright,” Vasquez tells him, and then disappears out of the room, no doubt in search of the first aid kit that hasn’t seen use since the time Vasquez had made mincemeat out of his own hand trying to catch a falling window shard.

When Vasquez comes back carrying the first aid kit under one arm, Faraday gives himself a mental pat on the back. “I think there’s some aloe vera or something in there that might help.”

“Si,” Vasquez mutters. He pops the lid on the container and roots around in it until he pulls out a green bottle that he then proceeds to eye critically. “You’re right, but it’s almost expired.”

“Expiry dates are only guidelines,” Faraday assures him. “Bring it here.”

“No,” Vasquez replies, “you come sit here and let me take care of this.”

“Fine,” Faraday agrees, not wanting to get into another argument, especially over something so stupid. Pulling his arm out from under the water, he shuts the taps off with his good hand and shuffles in the direction of the table, only stopping when his foot brushes up against something.

Looking down he finds the notebook that had started the whole mess. Faraday had initially dropped it much closer to the stove, but it must have gotten kicked about by one or both of them in their rush to deal with more immediate problems. Not wanting to see it suffer further abuse, Faraday bends down and scoops it up off the floor.

“Where did you get that?” Vasquez’s voice is sharp, and he doesn’t look overly happy to see what Faraday’s holding in his hand when he straightens up out of his crouch. “That’s not yours.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Faraday snorts. “I stumbled across it when I was looking for the good stirring spoon.” Reaching the table, he drops it down next to the open first aid kit and looks over at Vasquez. “Dare I ask when you were gonna come clean about this?”

“Come clean about what?” Vasquez asks. He’s trying to look innocent, but Faraday knows him too well to buy it for so much as a second. “There’s nothing to come clean about. I’ve just been … collecting certain pieces of information to help with projects around the house.”

“That’s a decent excuse,” Faraday says, impressed in spite of himself. “It’s total bullshit, of course, but it’s not a bad try.”

Vasquez pouts at him and then sighs. “Guero, let me see your arm. You can yell at me after it’s taken care of.”

“I ain’t planning to yell,” Faraday says, obediently offering up his wounded limb. “Unless it’s in pain,” he adds with a snarl when Vasquez begins prodding at the burn. It’s not the other man’s fault, he’s being as gentle as he can, but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant. “Fuck, I feel like an idiot. And I'm sorry about before. I shouldn't have been yelling then either.”

Vasquez makes a soothing noise as he squeezes a generous helping of aloe vera onto two of his fingertips and starts spreading it over the burn. “It's fine. I know you were more surprised than anything else by the papers. But what were you doing to let this happen?”

“I found that,” Faraday tells him, jerking his head in the direction of the notebook. “Was looking through it, had a bit of an important realization, and got a little ahead of myself in my attempts to get your attention. I didn’t realize how close I was to the stove and slammed into the pot.”

Vasquez tsks at him, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. “You need to be more careful, Joshua. As interesting as my home improvement plans might be, they’re not worth maiming yourself over.”

“Actually,” Faraday says thoughtfully, “I think they kind of are.”

“Que? Guero, did you hurt more than your arm by any chance?” Vasquez asks. “Should I be checking you for a bump on the head or something similar?”

Faraday snorts. “My head it fine, thank you very much. It’s just come to a startling conclusion tonight is the thing.”

“And what’s that?” Vasquez asks, only he does so absently, most of his attention focused on how he's playing nursemaid.

Unwilling to discuss this without being able to look the man in the eye, Faraday hooks the fingers of his good hand under Vasquez’s chin and tilts his head up to face him. Vasquez frowns in confusion and opens his mouth to speak, but Faraday cuts him off with a shake of his head. “You don’t want to grow old in this house,” he says in rush, needing to get the words out before he loses his nerve, “but you would if I asked you to.”

“Si,” Vasquez agrees, as simple as anything, and like that single word isn’t the equivalent of setting Faraday’s entire worldview on its end. “Of course, I would. Am. Didn’t you know that?”

“No,” Faraday says, and there’s a pounding in his chest that has both everything and nothing to do with what’s happening right here in this kitchen. “I – no. I didn’t know that at all.”

“Oh. … I see.” Vasquez says slowly, like he can’t quite wrap his head around the concept of what Faraday’s just told him. “I – oh, damnit.”

This last sentence is in relation to the fact that he’s just squeezed the tube of aloe vera too hard and has managed to splatter the table with various globs of gel. “That’s disgusting,” he mutters, and swipes at it with a dishcloth he gets up to grab. “And I think that’s enough for your arm. Give me a moment and I’ll wrap it up so it stays clean.” Putting action to words, he pulls a half-used roll of gauze out of the kit and unspools enough of it to begin curling it around Faraday’s gel coated limb.

Faraday lets him get away with this for a couple moments, but eventually he has to laugh. “Really?” He chuckles. There’s something, a feeling he doesn’t think he has the words to describe, bubbling up in his chest and threatening to overwhelm him. “You give me the closest thing there is to a declaration of ‘I love you’ without saying the actual words, and now you’re going to pretend like it didn’t happen?”

“I thought you knew!” Vasquez insists, his cheeks tinting in the way they only do when he’s incredibly embarrassed. “It’s not – I wasn’t exactly being subtle, guero.”

Faraday laughs again but immediately softens the sound by cupping Vasquez’s cheek with his good hand. “Is it possible you’ve forgotten how I mistook your initial flirting for an obsession with home maintenance? Sweetheart, I will be the first to admit that I don’t always pick up the clues folks are laying down. Why don’t you do us both a favour and stop trying to use this house – or any house for that matter - to tell me how you feel? I didn’t sign up to date a goddamned bowerbird.”

“A what?” Vasquez gives him a baffled look.

Now it’s Faraday’s turn to blush. He hadn’t meant for that last part to slip out. Still – “It’s a weirdass bird that builds fancy nests to try and get others to pay attention to it. Pretty much right up your alley.”

Vasquez wrinkles his nose, clearly unimpressed. “I’m not a bird.” He grumbles, but Faraday would like it noted that he nuzzles into the palm of his hand and doesn’t appear to have any intention of pulling away.

“No,” Faraday agrees. “You’re a lunatic. Why didn’t you just say you this has all been about you wanting to settle down for good? Did you think I wouldn’t want that?” He knows he’s not the best when it comes to expressing his feelings, case in point he hasn’t managed to say the word love back yet, but he’s still pretty obvious about what he wants.

“I – maybe?” Vasquez rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck with one hand. “Honestly, I was more afraid you’d insist we stay here than anything else, which is something I’ve been trying to make palatable even though I despise the idea.”

“You know,” Faraday says calmly, “I happen to be very fond of this house. We _met_ because of this house, and I think that should earn it at least some brownie points with you. However,” he adds when Vasquez looks pained, “I’m pretty sure I could call anywhere home so long as you were around, and I’d rather we lived someplace that didn’t make one of us miserable.”

It’s like he’s said some kind of magic words or secret code. Vasquez’s entire body perks up, to the point that Faraday’s a little afraid he’s about to be lifted off his feet by the world’s most excited home repair person, and his smile stretches from ear to ear. “Do you mean that? Dios como mi testigo, mijo, please tell me you mean that.”

“Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t,” Faraday assures him, and Vasquez lets out a noise of sheer delight that likely won’t ever be replicated.

“Gracias, carino. You have no idea how much – thank you, thank you. We will find – I don’t care how long it takes, we will figure out exactly what we both want in a house and we won’t buy anything until we find it. It will be what we both want, I promise.”

“Oh no,” Faraday says, cutting him off with a raised hand, “we’re not buying a goddamned thing.”

As Vasquez’s face starts to fall, Faraday holds the notebook up between the two of them. "Darlin', I don't know how to break it to you, but this? This is the work of an insane person. The house you're picturing here? We're never going to find it. It doesn't _exist_."

Looking offended, Vasquez tears the book out of Faraday's hand and drops it back onto the table. "So what are you suggesting?" He asks. "Fair warning, if you go back on your promise to move after getting my hopes up, I might actually leave you."

"You won't." Faraday assures him, and the words come out with a confidence he doesn’t think he's ever felt before. "Especially not when you hear what I've got to say."

Vasquez makes an impatient get on with it gesture, and Faraday grins. "We're not buying a place, we're going to build one - something you can get your grubby paws all over and micromanage to your heart's content. It'll be exactly what you're looking for, and we won't have to worry about shit breaking anymore because we'll have full control into what goes into making the thing."

"Granted," he adds thoughtfully, "I don't know what you're going to do with yourself when you don't have broken crap to complain about, but - mmph!" Faraday wants to make a crack about how no one should be this excited about the prospect of building a house, but he can’t because Vasquez is currently licking his way into his mouth and scrambling into his lap at the same time.

“Careful, darlin’,” he barks when Vasquez pulls back far enough to let him breathe. “I’m a wounded man here.”

“Eres perfecto,” Vasquez replies unhelpfully, “incluso con tus estúpidos accidentes.”

“Say what?” Faraday demands. His Spanish is limited to say the least, and he doesn’t recognize any of what Vasquez has just said, except maybe the word stupid. “You had better not be insulting me after I just gave you what you wanted. I _will_ make you regret it if you are.”

“I’m not,” Vasquez promises. He presses a flurry of kisses over the side of Faraday’s face and then pulls back to beam down at him, his smile brighter than Faraday’s ever seen it. “You’ll really let me build something?”

Faraday holds up a warning finger wanting to nip that idea in the bud immediately. “Let me be clear, I will let you _design_ something and work on the parts of it you’re qualified to handle. Anything you’re not trained for is being put in the hands of a professional. You can pick whoever that might be, but you’re not doing the work yourself.”

“But I can watch what they do? And make sure it’s done exactly how I want it? And I can choose all the things that I want? Like the set up of the staircases and the number of bedrooms?”

“What is it with you and – you know what? Never mind.” Faraday shakes his head. “Yes, you can put in as many damned bedrooms as you please. Put in eighteen for all I care. Whatever makes you happy.”

“I was thinking five,” Vasquez says seriously.

“That is an _absurd_ number of bedrooms, but fine. You can put in five. I expect a minimum of three of them will wind up being used as storage closets, but if that’s what you want then that’s what you’ll get. Oh my god, _calm down_!” Faraday barely manages to get his injured arm out of the way as Vasquez gathers him in for a backbreaking hug that threatens to send him spilling out of his seat. “Vas, sweetheart, I can’t fucking breathe!”

“You’re talking just fine for a man who cannot breathe, guero,” Vasquez points out, the cheeky bastard. He’s lucky Faraday loves him as much as he does.

“And you’re obnoxious,” Faraday tells him, receiving only a sunny grin in reply. He shoves at Vasquez until he moves back maybe an inch or two. “C’mon, lemme up. I’ve already got a bum leg and now a banged up arm, I don’t need cracked ribs on top of that.”

Vasquez shakes his head, a small moue twisting the corners of his mouth, tamping down the force of his smile. “You’re too accident prone, carino. You need to be better about that.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll just have to stick around and make sure that doesn’t happen, I guess.” Faraday shoots back.

“I’m going to do more than that,” Vasquez assures him, once again crowding into Faraday’s personal space. “I’m going to build a house even you can’t manage to get into trouble in.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Faraday shoots back, or tries to anyway. In reality, he’s too busy letting Vasquez steal the breath from his lungs as they fall back against the table.

*****

Things in the kitchen degenerate pretty rapidly, but Faraday’s not as young as he once was and getting up to anything fancy down there is just asking for trouble where his leg is concerned. They wind up upstairs in their bed not long after, and any coherent thoughts Faraday may have been able to hold onto go right out the window when Vasquez shoves him onto his back and climbs on top of him.

“In a bit of a rush there, sweetheart?” Faraday laughs breathlessly.

“Shut up and get your pants off,” Vasquez growls, his hands already undoing Faraday’s belt.

Any response Faraday might make gets cut off when Vasquez gets his mouth on him, and after that everything is just a blur skin and teeth and choked off moans. By the time Faraday comes back to himself, he’s still flat on his back, but is now panting roughly up at the ceiling as he tries to remember important details – like his own name for instance.

Vasquez flops down beside him, and curls an arm over Faraday’s chest, making contented noises as he lands. He mumbles something unintelligible that Faraday has a sneaking suspicion relates to building permits, nuzzles his face against Faraday’s throat a couple times, and then conks out between one blink and the next. It’s like he’s reached nirvana and all it’d taken to get him there was telling him he could get his hands all over a major building project.

“You are so weird,” Faraday says fondly. Never mind that Vasquez can’t hear him, the words needed to be said.

Unlike Vasquez, who eventually starts wriggling around despite his being dead to the world and winds up with his face mashed into a pillow rather than Faraday’s chest, Faraday is too wound up from the night’s events to sleep. He finds himself lying back with his arms folded under the back of his head as he tries to imagine what kind of house Vasquez will have in mind.

It’s going to be sturdier than the one they have now, that’s for certain. Bigger too. They’ll probably have to save up for a while before they can get serious about putting it all together. Based on what Faraday had seen in that notebook, it seems fair to bet Vasquez has a lot of feelings about structural integrity and household features that Faraday has previously mentioned liking.

Honestly, when he thinks about it, the only thing that Vasquez seems to be focusing on for himself is his bizarre insistence on all those extra bedrooms, leading to more space than the two of them can reasonably be expected to need. You'd almost think he was planning on ...

Faraday's eyes snap open. He shoots upright in the bed without conscious thought. Next to him Vasquez burrows deeper into the covers and mumbles something in unimpressed confusion. 

"Guero, what -?"

"Kids!" Faraday yelps, with his heart thudding in his chest. "You want to fill the damn place up with kids! Are you insane? We can barely take care of ourselves!"

Vasquez groans and yanks a pillow down over his head.

“Joshua, go to sleep!”

*****

_Epilogue_

"They've got a lot done since the last time you had me out here. The whole frame is up now and everything."

Adjusting his sunglasses so they're resting on the top of his head, Faraday shifts his attention to where Emma's eyeing the ongoing building project with an impressed look on her face. "Yeah," he agrees, pleased, "it's coming along pretty well now that someone has stopped sticking his nose into the blueprints every five seconds."

Emma snickers. "You knew he was going to be bad. I'd even go so far as to say awful."

Faraday snorts in return. "Woman, there is bad and there is awful and then there is whatever the hell Vas has been. Did I tell you he's scared off another window guy? That's the third one to quit since we started this mess."

Emma's snickering gets more intense. "Serves you right for telling him he could oversee everything. You know what he's like when it comes to his pet projects."

"Lord, don't I just." Faraday agrees. He gazes out at where the outline of the place he'll eventually be calling home rises out of the ground and catches sight of the project's foreman heading towards him with some speed.

"Morning, Chris, I’m just showing a friend all the work your lot has got done" he says as the man approaches. "How're things?"

Chris opens his mouth to speak, visibly discards several responses, and then crosses his arms over his chest. "Get him the hell off of my work site. Faraday, I swear to god I am going to kill him if he's not out of my hair within the next five minutes."

Faraday blinks. "What?"

Chris's expression takes on the cast of a hunted animal, and he hunches forward like he's half expecting danger to come bolting out of the bushes. "Faraday, I will pay you to take him away. He's been poking around for over an hour now, and no one can get anything done. Jenny from electrical was making noise about showing him exposed wires, and she's got more patience than anybody."

Feeling the opening stages of a headache coming on, Faraday pinches the bridge of his nose while Emma starts shaking next to him. There isn’t a doubt in his mind as to who the man must be referring to. "Sorry, Chris. I didn't even know he was out here today. I thought he was working on the other side of town. Go tell him I need him for something and I'll drag him off."

"Thank you," Chris says, far more gratefully than a six and a half foot bear of a man should ever feel the need to sound.

Emma bursts out laughing as soon as Chris is out of earshot. "Oh my god," she says in between giggles. "Why didn't you tell me he's become the terror of the Rose Creek construction brethren?"

"Because it's not exactly something I'm proud of," Faraday growls.

"And speak of the devil," he adds as Vasquez materializes in his line of sight. "What did I tell you about bothering the builders, you lanky nuisance? If one more person quits on us we're going to have to hire someone from out of town just to get things finished."

Vasquez pulls up short, a guilty look crossing his face that he both tries and fails to hide. "I was just -"

"Nope," Faraday cuts him off with a wave of his hand as Emma's laughter ratchets back up again. "C'mere. We're leaving before you finally piss someone off enough to take you out with a two by four to the head."

"No one is going to do that, guero." Vasquez insists. "Everyone here is a professional."

"Which makes how wound up you manage to get them all the more impressive." Faraday hooks an arm around Vasquez's waist and starts dragging him in the direction of where all the cars are parked. "Come on now, I'm sure we can find something better for you to entertain yourself with. That goes for you too Emma."

She falls into step beside them as Faraday forcibly steers Vasquez away from the site. "It really is going to be great when it's done. Those blueprints you showed me looked amazing."

"Yes, and with luck we'll all still be alive when the time comes." Concerned about what Vasquez might do if he manages to escape his clutches before they get him to a car, Faraday maintains a steady grip on the man. "I'd hate to have to move in there as a recent widow."

Finally giving up on his attempts to squirm free, Vasquez gives Faraday an exasperated look. "It'd be widower in your case, guero, except not even that since we aren’t married."

"Whatever," Faraday grunts. "My point stands. Keep moving, muchacho."

"But the framework -!"

"Is fine."

"You don't know -!"

"Yes, I do."

"This is very unfair."

"No," Faraday disagrees. "Unfair would be leaving you here with all these poor people who're trying to work."

Vasquez grumbles something unintelligible under his breath, but makes no further moves to return to the work site. Pleased, Faraday pats his shoulder and congratulates himself on a job well done.


End file.
